The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the
doctor's ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene
of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on
the stairs.
Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her
eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an
expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr.
Vimpany's advice.
He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told
Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had
suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now
repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really
feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first
time, his wife spoke to him.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked, The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling
its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past
happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love,
that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his
heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal
it. He was silent.
"If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let
us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches.
Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A passing flush
crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the
consciousness of returning love--the blind love that had so cruelly
misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was
sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even
firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked,
"that you wish me to leave you?"
No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her,
could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife
without uttering a word--he held out his arms to her. The fatal
reconciliation was accomplished in silence.
At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany's bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr.
Vimpany's rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared
again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two
men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing
in the recovery of his wife's tender regard, drank freely.
Understanding and despising him, the doctor's devilish gaiety indulged
in facetious reminiscences of his own married life.